FFC’s El Sheikh: ‘Unresolved differences between parties challenge to Sudan peace’

Ibrahim El Sheikh, member of the Peace Committee for the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), said that one of the biggest challenges facing the peace negotiations is not resolving the differences among the components of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) alliance of armed movements, but the various negotiation platforms, namely South Sudan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Chad, Egypt, as well as international axes.

At a symposium organised by the Sudanese Communist Party in Khartoum on Wednesday, El Sheikh stressed that “the basic conditions must be met in the negotiating platform. It should be neutral, without having hidden agendas”.

He attributed the current disagreements within the SRF rebel alliance to the confusion concerning the negotiation platform and the funding for the implementation of a peace agreement.

El Sheikh said that “the previous agreements failed to achieve peace and stability because they were bilateral, based on quotas, and did not address the roots of the crisis in Sudan, of inequal development, an unfair distribution of power and wealth, and failing management of the diversity in the country”.

He said that the international and regional factor played a pivotal role in thwarting the peace agreements as they were done through “pressure on the negotiating parties”.

“The previous agreements failed to achieve peace and stability because they were bilateral, based on quotas, and did not address the roots of the crisis in Sudan…” – Ibrahim El Sheikh

He criticised the Sovereign Council, which he said “relies on the incorrect text of the Constitutional Document, which granted it patronage and unilateralism to form the negotiating delegation and the Supreme Peace Council”.

Lawyer Saleh Mahmoud, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party said in the symposium, that “peace is an urgent necessity for the return of displaced persons and refugees to their villages of origin”.

The lawyer described the positions of the Sovereign Council and Cabinet on the issue of justice as ambiguous, warning that “the refusal of the Chairman of Sovereign Council El Burhan to hand over Al Bashir to the International Criminal Court might [lay him] open reports of charges of obstructing international justice like Al Bashir”.

He warned that Sudan’s transitional government “will face the same predicament” if it refuses to hand over Al Bashir.

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